“You are right,” he said. “We are not likely
to be discovered where we are and that is a great temptation. But
every moment that I linger only puts you into more danger. And Hugh
will risk his life to wait for me until I join him, when it would
be safer for him to be away from here at once.”
He held her face between his hands while she
clutched at him to keep herself from falling to her knees before
him to beg him never to let her go, to stay with her, to take her
with him.
“Giles.” She saw in his moonlit eyes the
longing that matched her own. If she cared for him, she must not
cause him greater pain. She nodded her acceptance of this ending,
the motion scattering her unshed tears across her cheeks. “Only
kiss me once more and then go.”
His warm lips brushed across hers for a
moment too brief and too sweet to ease the ache in her heart.
“Do not forget me,” he said.
“Never.” She broke away from him, turning
from the light in his eyes that offered all she wanted as a woman,
knowing she could not have what he offered. For her, there would be
nothing more than these few moments, already gone, already in the
past.
“Farewell.” He went through the door. It was
only a few steps to the edge of the moat. Giles lowered himself
into the black and silver water. Praying that no guard patrolling
on the wall would notice him, Mirielle watched the shadow of his
head moving across the moat. She could not see him pull himself
onto the opposite bank, but as she stared into the night she
thought she saw a motion, as though a hand were waving to her. Only
then did she close the postern door and lock it.
She paused just long enough to cloak herself
in disguise once more before she hurried across the bailey toward
the inner gatehouse and then on to the tower keep and the safety of
her lonely bedchamber.
“I will send to Lincoln—even to London if
necessary—to find new glass vessels for you, Mirielle. I have
ordered the castle potter to make new clay jars in the sizes you
require. I promise, this room will be restored to its former
state.”
Brice stood in the workroom looking as if he
had just returned from battle. Mirielle suspected that Alda had
allowed him little sleep during the night. To add to Brice’s
weariness he, Captain Oliver, and two dozen men-at-arms had spent
most of the day scouring the territory around Wroxley Castle in a
fruitless search for Giles and Hugh.
Giles’s daring escape had caused a sensation
because no one could guess how it had been done. Neither the guards
in the gatehouse nor the sentries on the walls had seen or heard
anything unusual, and both the bolt on the dungeon door and the
shackles that had secured Giles’s wrists and ankles were still in
place and locked when his absence was discovered shortly after
dawn.
As for Hugh, no one could recall seeing him
since noontime on the previous day. A tale was circulating that
Hugh had somehow left the castle unseen during the daylight hours
and had gone to a safe place, from where he had whisked his
companion out of the dungeon by magic.
“I am sorry for the damage done here.” Brice
ran a hand through his hair.
“In the future,” Mirielle told him, “I expect
you to keep Alda away from me and out of my workroom. She is not to
interfere with my duties as chatelaine, nor will I allow myself to
be treated as her servant any longer.”
“You need have no concern about Alda,” Brice
assured her.
“If she will not agree to these terms,”
Mirielle went on as if her cousin had not spoken, “then let her
assume her rightful place as chatelaine with all the duties that
position entails. I will then leave Wroxley and take myself to a
convent to live.”
“We have always agreed that you would be
unhappy in such a life,” Brice said. “With no dowry to donate to
the Church, you would be looked upon as nothing more than a servant
there, either.”
“Better to be merely unhappy and a servant to
the Church than tormented as I have been for the last few days,”
Mirielle snapped. When Brice still looked doubtful, Mirielle
continued, “If your claim that you know how to control Alda is
true, then you can do this for me, Brice.”
“I need you here, Mirielle. We all need
you.”
“Alda does not think so. If I am so valuable
to you and to the welfare of the castle, why did you not defend me
against her?”
“I will speak to Alda.” With a last, pleading
look in Mirielle’s direction, Brice left her.
It was amazing, Mirielle thought, the changes
that had been wrought in her in one week’s time. She was no longer
naive. She saw Brice much more clearly and understood him better,
she had made a close friend in Donada, and her knowledge of the
magical arts had been greatly increased.
Most important of all, she had met Giles. In
him she had found the love for which she had always longed and
together they had tasted passion. Parting from Giles had been the
most painful farewell she had endured since the deaths of her
family and Cerra, but in his leaving she had the comfort of knowing
he still lived and that she had contributed to his safety. Though
they might never meet again, her love for Giles would burn forever
in her heart, sustaining her through the lonely years ahead.
“I am glad those two men have gone,” Alda
said to Mauger. She paced restlessly across the formal garden,
trailing her long skirts through the March mud. “I do not care if
Captain Oliver finds them. Let us hope they never return.”
“Do you imagine they will not?” Mauger’s
attitude was anything but respectful toward his liege lady. “Then
you are more foolish than I thought. And what is to become of
Mauger the watchman, I ask you? Captain Oliver does not love me.
Not that he ever did, but now he cannot bear the sight of me.”
“He will not dismiss you, Mauger. I will see
he does not. Now, go away. I want to think.”
“We would be better off if you had stopped to
think during the past week,” Mauger said. “Those two strangers
frightened you until you lost your wits and took foolish
action.”
“I said, go away!”
“Aren’t you cold?” Mauger paused at the gate
in the palisade around the garden to send a malicious glance at
Alda. “Since you are always complaining about the cold, I would not
expect you to stand here so long in a freezing March wind, arguing
with me, especially when you know I am in the right.” When Alda did
not answer him and gave no indication that she was aware of his
continued presence, Mauger shrugged his shoulders and strolled off
in the direction of the outer bailey.
“Yes, I am cold,” Alda muttered, “but I will
be warm soon enough. Brice will warm me and give me some of his
strength, but later. Later. First I must think.”
Through the gate that Mauger had left open
Alda glimpsed the hem of a brown skirt as its wearer hurried into
the mews directly across the bailey. The sight distracted her from
the problem she ought to be considering.
“Now, who was that?” Alda asked herself. “Is
the falconer holding an assignation in the mews? If he is, it will
disturb the falcons, which will annoy Brice.”
She was about to leave the herb garden to
investigate when Brice came out of the keep and made for the mews.
Alda drew back, hiding behind the fence. Brice disappeared into the
mews. Immediately, Alda decided that whatever was going on over
there was intensely interesting. She made her own way across the
bailey. She did not have to go inside the mews. One of the shutters
had carelessly been left open. Alda had only to stand outside it to
hear what was said within. At first what she heard made her angry,
but as she continued to listen she began to smile.
“Well, Brice,” she said in a low, deadly
voice, “now I learn that you have withheld some part of your
affection from me and given it to Donada. No, no, that will not do.
I require your complete devotion.
“But how convenient,” Alda went on. Knowing
if she stood too long where she was, someone in the inner bailey
would surely notice and remember her presence by the mews, she
began to walk toward the keep, still speaking to herself. “Just
when I was trying to devise a way to punish Mirielle for defying me
and for giving orders to Brice about me, Brice himself has put the
means of punishment into my hands. Mirielle and Donada have become
such good friends of late that Mirielle would be heartbroken were
anything to happen to Donada. Mirielle would do everything she
could to help her friend. And then there is that brat, Robin. Harm
done to him would hurt both Mirielle and Robin’s loving mother.
Now, where shall I begin? The mother or the son first? The mother
or the son?”
“Tell us everything.” In the only private
chamber in the inn at Nottingham, Hidern and the other squire,
Bevis, attended their lord and his friend, Hugh. Bathing facilities
were nonexistent at the inn, but the squires had managed to
commandeer two jugs of hot water from the inn’s owner and, from one
of the kitchen wenches, two large mixing bowls to be used for
basins. The squires carried with them at all times their lord’s
supply of cedarwood-scented soap and clean towels. Two sets of
fresh clothing were laid out on the bed.
“Aye, my lords, do tell us about your
adventures.” Bevis handed a towel to Hugh. “Was your spying
successful?”
“We learned all that two men could be
expected to learn before the time arrived when it was wise for us
to leave,” Hugh responded.
“Which means they found you out,” said
Hidern, grinning. “Was there a fight? How I wish I could have been
there.”
“I am sorry to disappoint you,” the nobleman
said, his words muffled by the clean shirt he was pulling over his
head. “There was no battle.”
“Will there be one when we go back?” Bevis
wanted to know. “You are going to return, aren’t you, my lord?”
“With all my men behind me,” came the
response. “Hugh and I will rest from our recent travels for one
day, during which we will make our preparations. Find a barber,
Hidern, and bring him here in the morning. I will need to be shaved
and to have my hair cut. Bevis, order a good meal for us tonight.
Roast beef, if you can get it.” At his nod of dismissal, the
squires went off to carry out their respective orders.
“While they are gone,” said Hugh, “I will
walk about the streets of this fair town, to hear what
conversations are being held.”
“You did that for two days before we rode to
Wroxley,” came the response.
“It may be that a word heard here, or another
there, will make more sense to me now that I have been to the
castle.” Hugh looked at his companion with serious eyes. “We had to
leave her there, my friend. We could not jeopardize the task we
were given. As you have seen, two men can melt into the forests and
reappear elsewhere. If they are not found, eventually the search
for them will end. Add a woman to the group and the men must travel
more slowly and stop more often. Thus, they are more likely to be
overtaken. Nor will the search ever end when a lady is
concerned.”
“I know. It was the only thing to do.” The
nobleman’s expression was as bleak as his words. Hugh watched him
for a while longer and then left him in peace, for which the
nobleman was grateful.
He freely admitted to himself that he had
overstepped the boundaries of his own plan by all but seducing
Mirielle. He regretted what he had done only because he knew she
would be hurt when the next step was taken.
In all his scheming and thinking on how to
accomplish the task set for him by King Henry while causing the
least amount of harm to innocent people, he had given no thought to
the effect his efforts would have upon his own emotions. Try as he
might to convince himself that deceiving Mirielle had been
necessary to get the information he needed, he knew that he had
taken entirely too much pleasure in his brief moments with her.
Now, apart from her, he found her lingering in his thoughts.
He wanted her. And he wanted no one else. He
had seen below in the common room of the inn the tavern wenches who
were available should he choose to crook a finger to any one of
them, and those women disgusted him. After touching Mirielle, with
her gentle heart, her sweet face and clear, pure eyes that mirrored
her every emotion—after kissing Mirielle, how could he take a
tavern wench to his bed? It would be Mirielle, or no one.
He prayed he would be able to keep that
silent vow. For there was a chance that, in order to learn the full
truth he had been sent to discover, he was going to have to take
physical possession of a woman he did not desire. If he did so, the
act would destroy any hope he might have of earning Mirielle’s
love.
“I stand balanced on the edge of a sword
blade,” he sighed. “To fulfill what she has chosen to call my
quest, I may have to lose Mirielle. But if I do not do what I came
from King Henry’s court to do, I may lose her anyway, and justice
will lose, too. Evil will win.”
When he closed his eyes he could see her face
again, drenched in moonlight as they made their farewells. His
heart sat heavy within his breast, his soul cried out to the one
woman whose love could save him from a lonely life. But his body
was prepared for battle, his face grim, mouth tight, hands flexing
on the pommel of his sword.
“Oh, Mirielle, Mirielle…”
More than two weeks had passed since the
false pilgrims, Giles and Hugh, had overstayed their welcome at
Wroxley Castle and then had left most unceremoniously. A search
lasting several days had revealed no sign of either man. The
servants and many of the men-at-arms still spoke with lowered
voices about the amazing manner in which Giles had disappeared from
the dungeon and they were convinced that the two men were wizards,
who had used their magical abilities to fly far away to some
distant land. If the seneschal of Wroxley, or Captain Oliver, or
either of the two ladies living in the castle thought differently,
they did not say so. In fact, they did not speak of the departed
strangers at all. While Mirielle continued her duties as
chatelaine, Alda withdrew into her private chamber, appearing only
for the midday and evening meals, during which she did her best to
ignore Mirielle’s presence.